Posts Tagged ‘terrorism’

Thousands of Israelis showed their solidarity and sympathy at the funerals of the four victims killed by a terrorist attack on the kosher supermarket Hyper Cacher in Paris.

The victims were buried on Tuesday, January 13 at noon in the Givat Shaul cemetery in Jerusalem. All the victims were Jewish; Yohan Cohen, Yoav Hattab, Phillipe Barham and Francois-Michel Saada.

Although the victims were French citizens, their families asked the Israeli authorities for permission to bury their bodies in Israel. Israel’s government agreed, and made the necessary arrangements.

The funerals were attended by many Israeli public figures, as well as key figures from the French Jewish community, numbered at 500,000 strong. Speeches were made by Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, head of opposition Isaac Herzog and French Minister of Ecology and Sustainable Development and Energy, Segolene Royal.

Prime Minister Netanyahu talked about his visit to Paris the previous day during his speech at the funerals. “Yesterday, I returned from Paris, where I participated in the anti-terror march alongside leaders from all over the world. I think that the majority of them understand, or at least starting to understand, that radical Islam is a real threat to world peace”.The Israeli prime minister also added that Islamic terror is not just a Jewish or Israeli problem but a problem for all humanity. “It is time all people of all cultures unite, and eject these elements among us.”

President Rivlin addressed French minister, Royal, saying: “European leaders must obligate themselves to act in an effective manner; they must obligate themselves and act with a firm hand, so that Jewish people in Europe can feel safe again, whether in Toulouse, Paris, Brussels or Burgos.”

French Minister, Royal commented that “I want to give my condolences on behalf of the French Republic, which shares your grief…the victims were murdered for being Jewish, which is outrageous.”
“Anti-Semitism has no place in France and that is the message carried by the millions of French people who marched on Sunday.” Royal, announced in her eulogy that the four victims will receive a posthumous French honor, “Ordre National de la Légion d’Honneur ” (Legion of Honor), which is the highest decorative honor bestowed in France.

Following the Paris anti-terror march, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and French President François Hollande went to the Synagogue de Paris (Grand Synagogue of Paris) for a memorial ceremony. Minister Naftali was sitting behind them.

Hollande is wearing a Kipa for the ceremony.

Some people are saying that the French haven’t shown this much respect to the Jews and Israel in decades.

The Israeli Opera refused to commemorate the victims of a terrorist attack in France on Friday, leading French-Israel conductor Frederic Chaslin to pull out of a planned performance, Haaretz reports.

On Friday, a terrorist murdered four Jews in a kosher butcher shop in Paris, and held several others hostage. Police ultimately shot and killed the terrorist and freed the hostages.

Chaslin asked the Israeli Opera to play the Israeli anthem, Hatikva, before a performance Saturday of La Rondine. He also asked to speak briefly in memory of the victims of Friday’s attack.

According to Chaslin, the opera’s management refused his request, arguing that it would violate opera policy and ruin the mood for viewers.

Chaslin was upset by the answer. “What policy? Where am I? Is Israel not the country that declares itself to be a refuge for persecuted Jews?” he wrote in response.

The Israeli Opera defended its policy in a statement to Haaretz. The opera has always stuck to its normal schedule “even in the painful days when there were dozens of terrorist attacks, even during wartime,” the statement said. “This is the opera’s way of not letting terrorism win and disrupt our routine.”

It has been revealed that terrorist Amedy Coulibaya, who murdered four people in a kosher supermarket in Paris on Friday, may have planned to attack a Jewish school just one day earlier.

Maps with the locations of Jewish schools on them were found in his car.

On Thursday, Coulibaya shot and murdered a female police officer who was responding to a car accident. Investigators now suspect that he had been planning to attack a Jewish school located a short distance beyond the site of the crash.

The policewoman’s death had caused confusion, as it was not clear why Coulibaya would have traveled from his own neighborhood to the district of Mountrouge to shoot a random police officer.

“Everyone thinks he was on his way to the school,” an employee at a bakery near the site of the shooting told the British Guardian.

In 2012, a terrorist attacked a Jewish school in Toulouse, murdering four people. The victims were a father and his two young sons, and an 8-year-0ld girl.

In a video apparently recorded after the Thursday attack, Coulibaya states that he “went out a bit against the police so that it has more impact,” in order to synchronize his attack with the attack on the French magazine Charlie Hebdo on Wednesday.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will be in France on Sunday to attend a unity rally to protest terrorism. Many world leaders plan to attend the rally, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, British Prime Minister David Cameron, King Abdullah II of Jordan and his Queen, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

The four Jewish victims in the HyperCacher terror attack in Paris were killed in the beginning of the incident when the terrorist first entered the supermarket. They were not killed when the French special forces entered the store.

It always surprises me that all the Jews didn’t run away from Germany before the Holocaust began. I don’t mean when it was too late and they couldn’t, but when the antisemitism was already starting to be overt and unavoidable.

I know that Aliyah from France is up, but we’re talking about a few thousand people a year out of half a million – and this is when at least 40% of all racist crimes in France have been against Jews.

There’s no denying that there’s something naively optimistic about us Jews. We always think the situation will get better, but sometimes the writing is on the wall, like it is in France.

I’m sure there are French Jews who are looking at the massive support rally and think that France is finally at a turning point, and it will now begin to truly fight the Islamic terrorism in its midst, and once again Paris will be safe(r) for Jews.

Perhaps. Or perhaps it’s too late.

Picking up and leaving isn’t easy. The well-off French Jews probably all have homes in Netanya and Jerusalem already, but it’s the middle-class that has a problem.

Israel needs to make a special effort to bring them all over to Israel successfully. We must make sure they have jobs, homes, and not face a drastic drop in their lifestyle, just because they are making Aliyah (basically against their will).

The Russian and Ethiopian aliyahs had their unique challenges and Israel rose to meet them.

Massive French Aliyah will have its own unique challenges too, and the country must begin preparing for it, as well as convincing our French brethren that it is time to come home. 10,000 French Jews should not be the goal. Half a million French Jews should be our goal.

I don’t know much French, but just for you guys I’ll do my part just to make sure you all feel just a little more comfortable: Bienvenue à la maison.

I hope I wrote that right, but if I didn’t, try this on for size:ברוכים הבאים הביתה.